**2.1 Geographical location and regions**

Cameroon is a country located at the crossroads of West and Central Africa with a surface land size of 475,440 km<sup>2</sup> [1] and a population of about 22.71 million inhabitants. It is bordered by Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Republic of Congo to the West, Northeast, East, and South respectively. Cameroon lies on the Bight of Bonny coastline, which is part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean [1]. Cameroon is called '*Africa in miniature*' because it is characterized by a richly diversified natural environment such as mountains, desert, rain forest, savannah grassland and oceanland. The country consists of three main natural regions [2].


## **2.2 Agro-ecological zones**

The natural regions in Cameroon are divided into five agro-ecological zones (**Table 1** and **Figure 1**) each characterized by dominant physical, climatic, and vegetative features.

## **2.3 Importance and production systems**

The economy of Cameroon relies mainly on agriculture, with main export crops such as cocoa, coffee, cotton and banana. On an average about 47 million hectares of Cameroon's land are used for the agricultural sector [2]. It estimated to be less than 5% of the entire territory; moreover, the exploitation of forestry, mining and fisheries represent an additional contribution to the economy of the country. Agriculture in Cameroon is currently employing about 70% of its workforce and providing 44% of its gross domestic product and 30% of its export revenue [1]. The different production systems practiced in the country are:

**Figure 1.** *Different regions (a) and agroecological zones (b) in Cameroon.*
